Overview

• Cicero Moraes led the first scientific reconstruction of Beethoven’s face using rare 1863 skull photographs and 1888 measurement data from the Beethoven House in Bonn.
• Moraes crafted 2D frontal and lateral outlines, built a 3D model with a virtual donor’s tomography and applied soft tissue thickness markers to project key facial features.
• The final image was enhanced with AI and compared against a lifetime life mask, revealing deep frown lines and an icy stare matching historical accounts of his surly demeanor.
• Postmortem incisions on Beethoven’s skull posed reconstruction challenges but the model still achieved high compatibility with contemporaneous casts and portraits.
• The study sheds new light on how Beethoven’s resilience, creativity and intense focus coexisted with the irritable, unkempt persona documented by his peers.